Many people ask about if, when or how does someone with autism 'wake up'.

A 'waking up' experience is about being released from a previous constraint of some kind. In the case of 'autism' someone may have had a severe 'autism-related' challenge which progressively moved to be only moderate or sometimes even mild.

I have met a handful of adults over the years who were labelled with 'autism' (as opposed to those diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome) who had their moments when they were hardly recognizable as having 'autism', from a children aged 5 and upwards who had apparently 'outgrown' their autism to teenagers who reminisced about a world lost and left behind somewhere in mid childhood to adults who had reactions anywhere from feeling they were buried inside of new learned non-autistic behaviour and expression to those who lived public lives covering up and private lives in their more unleashed state and those who felt they hardly remembered their autism (I've met one who couldn't remember it at all but was diagnosed as severely autistic at age 3 and recommended for institutionalisation though outgrew his autism by the age of five and went on to become an engineer!).

Usually, in time, however, and when known intimately and long term in a variety of situations it is clear that however well they have progressed in their development they still have 'autism'. Those who manage their challenges with the help of a familiar, structured controllable environment, alternative communication techniques or dietary interventions or medication for anxiety-related issues or involuntary behaviours, usually don't hold it together in nearly the same way when these supports are not in place. So in a way the concept of 'waking up' can be true partially or totally for some, for others it is a myth and progress is about having good 'sticky tape'.

Whilst many people with Asperger's and some very able people with autism celebrate what they see as 'the culture of autism', others are very challenged in their functioning, often severely frustrated by the challenges directly posed by the effect of the condition on their lives. Some of these people have gone through 'waking up' experiences in which some area of development suddenly improved for them and over the years I have met many such people (some still functionally non-verbal but who progressed in other ways, others quite verbal) and shared in their accounts.

People with Asperger's have their own 'waking up' stories, often about having realised they processed information differently or because they found a group they belonged to. The 'waking up' stories of autism can be a little different.

'Autism', (by contrast with Asperger's Syndrome), can be about the world before the ability to keep up with literal meaning. In this regard it can be a very different world to the world of interpretation and 'meaning'.

'Autism' can be about severe sensory-perceptual issues and shifts in consciousness which can constitute a very different sensory-perceptual and cognitive reality and one which makes it difficult, if not impossible to stay consistently in 'the world', making 'ones own world' the main place of residence.

'Autism' can be about being controlled by involuntary behaviours and extreme impulse control issues that dictate the nature of interaction and communication.

'Autism' can be about a psychological, social and emotional take on 'the world' that arises from any or all of these issues.

Sometimes 'Autism' can be about having a war caused by acute anxiety, issues of overload or clashes between the 'autistic' and 'non-autistic' ways of experiencing, communicating, relating.

Sometimes, with particular interventions, people move on or awakening from these states.

Sometimes these major transitions shape, change, make or disintegrate the sense of 'self'. Every journey is different. There is no one type of 'autism'.

Among those who have, people have coped differently both emotionally and psychologically with emerging from the different limitations of 'autism'.

For some progress has been about getting a voice through typed communication. For others, as it was for me, big changes happened when I got the beginnings of getting receptive language. For some, including me, it may be because of the effects of dietary intervention or supplementation in decreasing major sensory-perceptual or information processing problems. It may like me have been because of the additional effects of medication or diet in freeing people up from involuntary behaviours and chronic adrenaline-driven self-protection responses or compounding mood disorders.

Progress may have been because of the effect of the environment in using an indirectly confrontational approach so Exposure Anxiety decreased enough to make contact more easily. It may have been because of the use of visual cues in finally getting literal meaning from receptive language. It may have been because of speech therapy in overcoming 'dysfunctional' language. It may have been because of intensive intervention that someone with autism 'lost' their absorption into 'their own world' or because the environment played hard to get till the person stopped self-protecting from 'invasion' and started coming out.

Progress may have been because of the desperate desire to be like and copy others until the person lost touch with their connected autistic self (I've met adults once formally diagnosed with autism who this had happened to).

It may have been because of an extreme environment which made it dangerous to remain outwardly in an 'autistic state' to the degree that the inner state and the outer state are dissociated (I've heard of cases other than mine where this has happened and one of the very early accounts by a parent, in For The Love Of Ann actually fitted this unfortunate model, though 'Ann' went on to become an actress in Ireland and live independently).

Progress may have been because of spontaneous 'recovery' from whatever constituted their formally diagnosed 'autism' (I do remember meeting some older children and teenagers over the years who 'used to be autistic' but outgrew the severity of their condition- again it will happen with some, but certainly not with others- there is no one type of 'autism').

For some the different 'waking up' transitions were celebrated for others they were followed by shell shock and withdrawal or the onset of a different type of anxiety or depression.

For some, it left a nostalgia for a world left behind, for others it was a matter of 'good riddance' to the old reality or a 'grit your teeth and get on with it' or 'roller coaster' type of experience. Everyone is different, that includes people diagnosed with 'Autism'.